Spindrift
by WinterLaurel
Summary: EW never happened. Wufei lives in the wilds of northern China and tries to come to terms with his conflicting emotions.


Title: Spindrift  
Author: WinterLaurel700  
Archive: www.heavenlycreature.net  
Category: Angst   
Rating: R  
Pairings: 5xM, 5x5  
Warnings: Angst, fur garments (if that sort of thing offends), killing/butchering an animal, and the rest is for the reader to interpret.   
Notes: Wufei lives in the wilds of (former, per the series) Northern China. EW never happened.  
Feedback: Of course! ;)  
Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own Gundam Wing, I'm just borrowing it. Sue me and you can   
have a pencil my cat chewed on.   
Special Thanks to: Dead Blush, Evil Loremaster, Heavenly Creature, and Sophonisba  
for their input.  
Dedicated to my Grandfather who always believed in me.  
  
  
Spindrift  
  
  
I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.  
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,   
I am alone, without a place to go.   
Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.   
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.  
Others are clear and bright,   
But I alone am dim and weak.  
Others are sharp and clever,   
But I alone am dull and stupid.   
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,   
Without direction, like the restless wind.   
Everyone is busy,   
But I alone am aimless and depressed.  
I am different.   
I am nourished by the great mother.   
-Tao Te Ching, Chapter Twenty (1)  
  
  
Wufei sat outside the entrance of his home, legs folded like two great wings, sloe eyes closed in concentration on his morning mediation. The first rays struggled through the mountain peaks to touch his face but did nothing to warm his frozen lungs. He opened his eyes, black moons rising, and grunted once as he rose to his feet to take advantage of the weak offerings of the depressed sun. Still, the sky was clear and bright as stained glass with edges unsmudged by technology. Light reflected off of the snow to illuminate the vale with translucent pastel colors. Wiry black scrub poked through the skin of the snow like a man's stubbly beard. It was nearly a frozen wasteland but for the ravens that would land then spring away with heavy flaps. He watched them, their feathers glistening blue-black.   
Black-blue glistening, Wufei's hair had grown thick and slippery down his back. He brushed it and deftly wove it into a braid that even Duo could admire. Duo could not admire it, but Wufei imagined that perhaps he would. Wufei let a faint smile go slip-shod across his face. Poor Duo, he had never understood. But what was there to understand anyway? Wufei almost chuckled at the thought and turned on the hot water for his morning tea. The faint hissing of hydroelectric steam streaming through the pipes of the dim den was the familiar, musical greeting of his home. He let the tea steep while he munched on smoked grayling, nuts, and dried berries.  
Breakfast done, he began his dressing ritual. That first winter he had suffered in his heavy down coat over the thin layers of cotton, and those miserable gloves had left his pinky tip frost-bitten, black, rotting, stinking, until he had to cut it off. He had learned. Silk underclothes, light wool pants and sweater, a heavy wool sweater, and thick leather leggings topped by larrigans. A leather satchel with two days' worth of provisions and survival gear went about his waist. A long fur coat made from the animals he had trapped replaced the down coat. His katana strapped to his back, his face wrapped in fur, and finally slipped the leather, fur-lined mittens over his hands. Wufei imagined that he looked like a beast, disguised from the seductive winter.   
He left his home. The songs of technology had long been silenced, the voices of humanity alien, and the dry scrunch of the snow under his snowshoes sounded like cornstarch in its box. That terrible sound was colder than the snow itself. He headed east to check his local trap line.   
At the fifth trap he heard squealing...a boar. He would have fresh meat after all. Spiky wiry mohawk ran down the weakening boar's back, barely moving from the shallow breathing. In one smooth movement the katana bit into its brain. Wufei smiled gently at the boar and- in an almost ceremonial gesture- touched its forehead. Then slit its throat.  
"Thank you, my friend."  
Sweating, lungs burning from the cold, he stopped to rest from his burden for a moment in the afternoon twilight. Night fell too swiftly during these strange abbreviated days. The daylight was gone after four hours, as if it too, did not wish to linger in the cold. Could the Sun not remember that it had the power of heat and light and cold and night? Last rays touched his face and he looked up. The spindrift flying off the mountains turned to gold dust sparkling for a moment before fading with the light, or blowing into the heavens, becoming new stars to light his way home.   
  
Steam hissed as Wufei turned on the lights. He dragged the boar into the cool room and heaved it onto the butcher block. Cold entrails chilled his hands as he pulled them out and placed them into a leather bag. He lopped off the head, peeled off the skin, and methodically carved up the meat. A hefty chunk would be dinner. He divided up the rest of the meat into leather bags and heaved it all into one of the deep niches that he had carved into the wall.   
He prepared his chunk of meat for dinner then stripped off his bloodied clothing. The steaming sauna purged the surface grime of his day's work and pleasantly seared his lungs, but did not melt away what he felt inside. What did all his accomplishments amount to? He did not understand. He was still missing something...he did not know what. He sensed that it was buried within him, buried underneath the snow. But the sun had wandered off its course and he was the only one that could put it back to rights. He was growing so cold that he didn't know if he had the strength left to try. Those other pilots, they had not failed their missions. He alone had failed. Against the harsh, hot air he screamed, his stinging throat began to close as if his own body wanted him dead. His gundanium ring had grown warm and glinted dully against his finger. Wufei hurled himself outside into the soft embrace of the snow. His breath was instantly frozen, his body deliciously hot and turning numb. He lay gasping in the snow that was as fine as dry as desert sand. It blew into his eyes and nibbled the delicate flesh of his ears and nose, warning that frostbite would happily begin chewing on his flesh any minute. Wufei did not want to move, he knew he had to move or die. Move or die. He was sick of moving. He had moved away from the colonies once, years ago, lost. No war. No family. No heritage. No place to go. Nothing! Damn it! He couldn't bear being nothing! He could survive, if he wanted to! Rosy fingers promising of spring, gripped dusty snow into a melting icy pulp and he tossed it away and went back into his den. He smiled faintly when he called it that. What else could he call it? A cave turned into a home for an animal. That was a den.   
It was beautiful den. Wufei had found the cave by luck; it provided him with everything. He had spent the past winters plastering, plumbing, building, but now it was complete. It was spare with whitewashed walls and painted murals for cheer. It kept him warm in winter, cool in summer, and hot springs had provided him with electricity and water. His luxury was a library of books, each placed in his particular order on the shelves that he had spent hours carving out of the walls. He ran his numbed fingers over the leather spines, caressing them, he knew each one and loved their musty smell. There was a comforting weight to them, they were real, they were beautiful. He wanted to create one, but along side the masters, how could he compare? What could he possibly have to contribute? All the ideas of men have taken so many unique vehicles and have worn over the same themes until they formed ruts and he wondered- how he could possibly matter? How could he count himself among them? He pressed the anger, the despair, into a cold melting lump and tried to throw it away. The cold lump struck the side of his mind and fell into the stagnant puddle that was ever growing within him. Sometimes that puddle would freeze and become tumor-like. He knew that if were not removed that it would eventually burst and kill him. One day. He picked up a hardbound book from a small shelf by his futon and scanned through his elegant calligraphy.   
"The usual lump was there today, one that is hard, swollen, within my breast that swells and lessens the pain when I see something beautiful. I want so much to have that poison lump be sucked out, spit out, banished. These emotions, that I refuse to let dominate me, spill over and fill that lump with its bilious fluids that I need eradicated- lest it kills me, rots me from within. Emotions, I think, can be a poison, a trick, something that spills over into the cracks and depths of my soul, and it stains, and rots and kills. I need to suck away that excess emotion, take its bilious liquid and turn it to wine that I can get drunk off of. Otherwise, that bilious liquid, that excessive emotion calcifies, then crumbles when exposed to the elements, it can't take the pressure."   
It seemed good to him, but who cared? He tossed it furiously across the room. Dinner was ready, but he didn't want it. He wanted something, but nothing that came to mind as to what he wanted. Nothing and everything appealed to him. It was too impossibly dark and cold to even think of going out. His work was done. The den was complete. His body temperature was back to normal. He knew what he wanted. He mixed roots and leaves together, and let it steep in steaming hot water. He drank down the bitter tea, it burned his tongue and throat and it made his empty stomach tingle. He laid back on his futon, made by his own hands, and slept.   
Meilan's lithe, compact, hard body hit him full force and he landed in the daises. She stood over him and laughed, high and clear, her face indistinct, as if she were standing behind a fine curtain of water. Her laughter faded and rose into a low moan, and Wufei could feel her orgasm tighten around him. He wanted to moan and release but she slapped him and told him that he could not. He cried out in pain, and she was gone. He was floating in space, naked. He gripped at himself for release, and his seed shot out and swam away, into the depths towards the rounded, fertile stars and he knew that he would never see his glistening semen again. He began to chase after it, but the blackness froze him, he was so cold, so cold........  
Wufei shot up in bed, shivering, sweaty, hard, and the blankets strewn on the floor.   
"Oh, Meilan. I remember that day you died."   
Wufei smiled wanly, released his useless immortality, wrapped himself in a long fur robe, and knelt before a cedar chest. The opened chest released a heady scent, and Wufei almost felt happy. He tenderly lifted out a small box. He laid it on his knees and carefully opened it. Inside the box was a jade silk shirt- stained rusty brown -with tattered black frogs. He lifted it to his nose but he couldn't smell her anymore. He buried his face it, seeking any traces of her scent left. He fingered the frayed cloth, folded it up carefully, and placed it on the futon. The hard lump began to swell. At the bottom of the box, a stiff yellowed parchment. The shaky but elegant characters of his writing said nothing new. Still, he looked for the last time.   
Dear Meilan,   
There was a beautiful sunrise this morning, the sunshine was silver behind the mountains, and looked as soft as your downy hair. It was so beautiful, but it was the first sunrise without you in my world. I am not worthy of you. Goodbye.   
Wufei.   
Wufei thrust the box aside, gathered up the shirt and the letter, and set them into the fireplace. He laid a ring of kindling around them and the tiny flame that sparked in his hand caught and spread quickly. The rusted jade silk crumpled and curled back like a snarl then burned brightly. His letter with the shaky, elegant characters evaporated and the kindling passed on the flame. Wufei carefully tended the new flames until satisfied with their strength, and gave them a few smallish logs to chew on. He slipped his gundanium ring off of his finger but a pale ring of flesh remained. The gundamium caught the glowing red light and looked as if it were wrought with blood. It was wrought with blood. The ring could not be destroyed by fire- it was too weak. But for now, Wufei slipped it back on to cover the pale band of flesh. He would find a suitable way to dispose of it.   
He knew, as he changed into his animal disguise, that he would lose the ring that day. His transformation complete, he left to check the traps that he had set on the other side of The Pass. He would reach his cozy little hunting cabin in three hours, just enough time before sunset. The wind taunted him that he was alone, that he could be easily lost, but he ignored it. The languid sunrise rose just high enough to give him his four hours of light. In its depressed state, he mused that this was all it could give. He quickened his pace and stopped at the top of a ridge overlooking the rest of the vale. Wufei noted his lungs weren't frozen, for it was unusually warm and windy today. He was wary. He tilted his head back, slightly. His nostrils flared, a beast sniffing out danger in his territory. To the north, between two peaks that looked like flaked obsidian, was what he simply called The Pass. No shelter, high winds, and avalanches. But in the vale beyond, there was plenty of good hunting. He would have preferred to live there but his den provided him with everything his physical body needed to survive.  
He continued on. His snowshoes compressed and scrunched the snow as usual. The occasional raven drifting overhead as silent and deadly as the clouds. Translucent light cast everything into sharp relief. The flaked peaks grew larger, looking heavenward like two guardians aware of him but ignoring him, spindrift flying like wisps of white hair. The depressed sun had just begun its swift descent into its twenty-hour slumber when Wufei reached The Pass. He whistled at a high and weird pitch that instantly alerted the guardian of the east. The crystal blanket of snow at her feet shattered, flared out and rushed with terrible force only to stop abruptly. Crystal shrapnel was suspended in the air then dissipated like mist under a summer sun. The sparkles anointed his fur like fairy dust, and he began his trek through The Pass.   
He tread lightly, but the scrunching of the snow was sharp and loud. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the silent explosion of snow from the west and in an eternal moment turned to face the violence that slammed carelessly into him, his view kaleidoscoped...and then it was still. Cement-like snow entombed him. He couldn't move, he could hardly breathe, and with every breath the snow was getting darker as his oxygen depleted. He couldn't move, he couldn't move, he couldn't move, helpless, oh god oh god, breathe, breathe, black, don't panic, don't panicdon'tpanicdon'tpanic ...easy... which way was towards the sweet sea of oxygen? He let a stream of saliva run...down into his nose. He was upside down, he couldn't move. He, the last of the Dragon Clan, watched the white snow turned black like blight. His gundanium ring was growing cold and freezing the hidden band of pale flesh. But his body was warm, insulated by the snow. He was drifting, warm, pleasant...as if it were summertime when the sun was not depressed, when the vegetation exploded green and the air was so warm and thick it was like swimming....swimming...in his consciousness...black moons setting...yes...he would live again.  
~Owari  
1. Tsu, Lao. [u]Tao Te Ching[/u]. Translation Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. New York: Knopf, 1972.   
  
  



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